Vrex360 said:
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For the love of-
[HEADING=1]SHE IS NOT INVALIDATING MEN NOR PROMOTING MISANDRY!![/HEADING]
She is highlighting sexist aspects of the video game culture, nothing more. This stuff exists and needs to be paid attention to.
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The problem is that there aren't any sexist aspects of the video game culture. Pretty much everything she mentioned is totally wrong, and is apparently only being brought up to get attention. She goes off about "tropes" but you have to understand that women themselves created or contributed to a lot of those tropes themselves.
What's more it's a myth that there is some huge barrier between what men and women find appropriate. Things like action adventure/fantasy/horror/science fiction occupy a sweet spot of interest that appeals to both genders, as does how the characters, including the female ones, are portrayed within those generes. If you sit down and check out the stuff in those generes that women create with a female audience in mind you'll notice that it's actually virtually indistinguishable for the stuff guys create for a male audience. This has lead to things like the "Paranormal Romance" genere crossing the gender boundaries with authors like Laura K. Hamilton, Kim Harrison, Charlene Harris, and others building up pretty impressive bodies of work. Charlene Harris even turned hers into an HBO show called "True Blood".
What the lady seeking funding here is doing is pretty much saying that there is a problem with how women are portrayed in video games, when really if you take your typical "problem" video game heroine and then compare them to works created by women you'll see very little differance in how they dress, act, or even what power sets they wind up using. Even the whole "damsel in distress" thing is hardly a sexist, male enforced trope, it could be argued that "True Blood" almost entirely revolves around a quintessential damsel in distress with an unfortunate taste in boyfriends. Not to mention that when women write even outside of the genere being rescued by some dude is very much a common theme.
Basically, for there to be a valid point in this Vlog she wants to make, she would have to establish that there is a huge break between those tropes, and what women consume for themselves within the generes, and really that won't happen because I'm pretty familiar with the science fiction and fantasy landscape, and what's successfully been aimed at a female audience out there, especially when it's crossed the gender gap (so to speak). Where she's coming from is entirely baseless, and trying to make a problem where there isn't one.
I know this is a topic a lot of people feel strongly about, and I apologize since I have been apparently pushing a few buttons and I've been trolled. I will however say that I do not see this as a feminist vs. anti-feminist debate. Because I do not think the lady wanting this money is a legitimate feminist, I think she wants attention and that's all there is to it. To accuse her of invalidating men or misandry actually gives her too much credit. To me, this whole thing looks like a situation where if this didn't get her a bigger platform, she'd be back in a couple of months with something else to try and get the attention.
